Singapore Design Week 2025 takes on the future with thought-provoking design solutions for tomorrow
On the occasion of the nation’s 60th year of independence, the festival examines what design holds for the future of Singapore and other global cities
August 28, 2025
Singapore, 28 August 2025 – As Singapore Design Week 2025 marks SG60 with the festival theme “Nation by Design”, it celebrates Singapore's design legacy while looking boldly ahead to the future with a trio of key events and other programmes spotlighting the importance of the role of design in shaping tomorrow.
Central to this forward-looking lens is one of the festival's flagship initiatives, the Design Futures Forum. Organised by DesignSingapore Council, this is the third edition which has hosted past speakers such as Pritzker Prize laureate Shigeru Ban, Danish platform Design Matters and acclaimed Asian voices like Thai architect Boonserm Permthada. This year’s forum is co-curated by Aric Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation and Ong Ker-Shing, Co-founder of Lekker Architects, and will centre around the global changes around sustainability, climate change, emerging technologies, social equity and care which are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Complementing the forum are two specially presented exhibitions: The ArtScience Museum premieres Another World is Possible, co-curated by Australian film director Liam Young. It will explore a distinctively Singaporean approach to the future, shaped by long-term thinking, environmental pragmatism and collective responsibility. Spanning architecture, design, literature and cinema, the exhibition assembles over 100 works by close to 40 contributors, including Björk, Torlarp Larpjaroensook, Osborne Macharia, WOHA and more.
Meanwhile, Sausage of the Future: Singapore Edition marks the Asian debut of food designer and researcher Carolien Niebling’s acclaimed project, that reimagines one of the world’s oldest designed foods as a symbol of sustainability and innovation. From seaweed and native flower-based sausages, the exhibition investigates sustainability, innovation and food security.
The festival theme of 'Nation by Design' highlights the role of design in Singapore’s progress, inspiring us to reflect on what’s ahead. Through three unique experiences, we invite festival-goers to step into the future. The Design Futures Forum sets the stage for urgent conversations, Another World is Possible offers bold new visions; and Sausage of the Future: Singapore Edition provides more food for thought on our sustenance and culinary culture, says Jody Teo, Festival Director of Singapore Design Week 2025.
Navigating brave new worlds
Returning for the third year, Design Futures Forum takes an interdisciplinary approach in examining the issues of today, and what this means for the future. The forum, titled Braving Complexities, explores the intersections where sustainability meets emerging technologies; technology-enabled healthcare; and sustainable ways to design with care for people and planet.
The forum has, for a couple of years now, been tackling the subjects of care, technology and sustainability. While these concerns remain central, it’s just as important to look at what design is today – a complex, often messy process that increasingly needs to be comfortable in complexity. In fact, design thrives in complexity. When we embrace its messiness, designers become vital players in uncovering challenges and shaping innovations for our future, says Ong.
The line-up of speakers discussing these topics includes:
- Liam Young whose provocative, speculative films are urgent examinations of current environmental questions
- Theodoric Chew, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of homegrown start-up, Intellect, which has become Asia Pacific’s largest employee mental health benefits company
- Dr Ayesha Khanna, who founded 21C Girls, which taught thousands of students the basics of AI and coding
- Thomas Thwaites, Author of The Toaster Project and Goatman: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human
- Chat Chuenrudeemol, Founder of Chat Architects and Documentarian of Thai vernacular “street” typologies, affectionately called ‘Bangkok Bastards’
- Alice Bucknell, whose innovative video games allow players to take on the perspective of non-humans, dissolving binaries like humans versus environment
- Adi Reza, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Indonesian bio-tech start-up MYCL and an Earthshot Prize 2024 finalist
(More speakers and their bios can be found in Annex A)
The one-day forum taking place on 17 September 2025 at Victoria Theatre will also offer an immersive networking experience curated by local creative agency OuterEdit. Key themes will be integrated into gastronomic offerings and onsite experiences, co-created with like-minded partners such as Singapore's largest indoor mushroom farm Fogo Fungi and agri-tech start-up Singrow.
Future-gazing for a taste of tomorrow
Over at ArtScience Museum, Another World is Possible opens new possibilities and alternative realities on 13 September. A key event of Singapore Design Week, this exhibition co-curated by the Museum and filmmaker Liam Young reveals a series of seven visually stunning chapters on how we can design a more hopeful, sustainable, and equitable future.
In response of the festival theme of “Nation by Design”, Another World is Possible will also feature Singapore-based architects, designers and creatives who are actively reshaping our city. This will range from WOHA’s biodiverse vertical cities to Finbarr Fallon’s photographic reimagining of the Singapore Flyer.
At a time when the future seems uncertain, we need reminders that other worlds are possible. As such, I am delighted that our next exhibition at ArtScience Museum, Another World Is Possible, invites visitors to look ahead with imagination, resolve and optimism. Together with DesignSingapore Council, we have embarked on an ambitious endeavour to articulate a more Singaporean ‘point of view’ on the future – one defined by resilience, creativity, and collective vision. In that sense, it feels like a timely offering to the world during this momentous and meaningful SG60 season, said Honor Harger, Vice President of ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands.
In a separate commissioned showcase by DesignSingapore Council, festival-goers get an edible glimpse into how we can consume more responsibly and creatively while delving into urgent themes of food waste, biodiversity and preservation.
Created by food designer and researcher Carolien Niebling, Sausage of the Future: Singapore Edition makes its Asian debut with new sausage concepts inspired by local ingredients, local chefs and local cultural heritage.
Alongside Niebling’s sculptural food models from her hit project which has travelled to New York, Milan, London, Zurich and Eindhoven, visitors in Singapore get an expanded version with fresh content, in addition to being able to taste these experimental sausages during SDW’s Bras Basah.Bugis Friday Late event on 12 September 2025 at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Fashion Gallery, Campus 2).
The sausage is one of mankind’s first-ever designed food items. Like Singapore itself, it’s born from ingenuity and necessity, proving that smart ideas can be deliciously efficient. For this showcase, we’ve partnered with Singaporean food visionaries to craft four entirely new sausages, each tackling a unique food challenge from food security to biodiversity to shelf life while reinventing tradition for Singapore’s vibrant culinary culture, says Niebling.
Future-forward Design Community events
Throughout the 11-day festival, several design studios and corporates will be sharing how the future is impacting their work as part of the Design Community events. Look out for Futures Feast, an immersive experience by design studio Chemistry exploring Singapore’s future through each course of the meal, Equitech Collective’s gathering of regional partners, community builders, and system designers who work across Asia to share insights on building a more equitable future through hyperlocal design, as well as super app Grab’s open house to discuss the topic of ‘Future by Design’, where design takes centrestage in driving innovation and empowering individuals.
Singapore has always been forward-looking. In just six decades, we dared to imagine a different future and boldly executed it. At our festival, we carry this same conviction: to explore what’s next, and design futures that are not only visionary, but also deeply human. From the Design Futures Forum to the myriad Design Community events, the programming this year will also offer fresh perspectives on how, through design, we can realise futures that are better, fairer, and more hopeful for everyone, said Dawn Lim, Executive Director of the DesignSingapore Council.
Notes to Editors
Design Futures Forum 2025
17 Sep 2025, Victoria Theatre
Tickets for the Design Futures Forum are currently on sale. Please refer to the website for the latest programme and updates.
bit.ly/SDWDFF25
Another World is Possible
Opens 13 Sep 2025 to 22 Feb 2026, ArtScience Museum
sdw.designsingapore.org/events/another-world-is-possible/
Sausage of the Future: Singapore Edition
Opens 11 Sep 2025 to 19 Oct 2025, NAFA Fashion Gallery, Campus 2
sdw.designsingapore.org/events/the-sausage-of-the-future-singapore-edition/
Images can be found in this folder.
About Singapore Design Week
One of Asia’s premier design festivals, Singapore Design Week (SDW) celebrates Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity, exploring design through three defining festival pillars: Design Futures (the design of the future and the future of design), Design Marketplace (lifestyle trends with a spotlight on Southeast Asia) and Design Impact (innovative solutions for a better world). Organised by DesignSingapore Council, SDW is a celebration of creativity and innovation, championing thought leadership and showcasing the best of design from Singapore and beyond.
About the DesignSingapore Council
The DesignSingapore Council’s (Dsg's) vision is for Singapore to be an innovation-driven economy and a loveable city by design. As the national agency that promotes design, our mission is to develop the design sector, help Singapore use design for innovation and growth, and make life better in this UNESCO Creative City of Design. Dsg is a subsidiary of the Singapore Economic Development Board.
https://designsingapore.org/
Annex A: Design Futures Forum 2025 Speaker Bios
(In order of appearance. More speakers will also be confirmed closer to date)
Session 1: Sustainability x Emerging Technologies
Liam Young | A designer, director and BAFTA nominated producer who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures, Liam Young has been described by the BBC as ‘the man designing our futures’. His visionary films and speculative worlds are both extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today. His films have premiered with platforms ranging from Channel 4, Tribeca, Venice Biennale, the BBC and the Guardian, and they have been collected by MoMA, Smithsonian, Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria amongst many others. |
Adi Reza
| Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of MYCL, a biotech startup pioneering sustainable materials from mycelium for fashion and construction. Adi has led MYCL to international acclaim, including the Earthshot Prize and MIT Solve finalist honors. Passionate about social entrepreneurship, he empowers communities while advancing climate-friendly innovation. |
Feifei Zhou | Feifei Zhou is a Chinese-born spatial and visual designer. The founder of spatial design studio terriStories, her work explores spatial, cultural, and ecological impacts of the industrialised and built natural environment. Through Feifei’s collaborations with scientists, she transforms research into visuals that clarify complex human–nature relationships while raising new questions. |
Grace Sai | Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Unravel Carbon, Grace Sai is a serial entrepreneur who is now dedicating her life to climate change. After a 15-year career in building startup and impact ecosystems, she led a VC fund as a Kauffman Fellow. |
Moderator & Co-curator Aric Chen | Aric Chen is Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the non-profit, London-based cultural foundation established by the late architect Zaha Hadid. Previously, he served as General and Artistic Director of Nieuwe Instituut, the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture; Professor at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University (Shanghai); and Lead Curator for Design and Architecture at M+, Hong Kong. |
Session 2: Emerging Technologies x Care
Theodoric Chew
| Theodoric Chew is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Intellect, Asia Pacific’s largest employee mental health benefits company, serving over 3 million users globally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honoree, he began his entrepreneurial journey at 16, later founding a content platform that was acquired at 20. He previously led marketing at Voyagin (acquired by Rakuten) and growth at Entrepreneur First before launching Intellect in 2019, now trusted by companies like Shopee, Grab, Singtel, and backed by top global investors. |
Moderator & Co-curator Ong Ker-Shing
| Co-founder of Lekker Architects, and Associate Professor (Practice) at NUS Department of Architecture, Ker-Shing is a registered Architect, with Masters degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Shing has won multiple awards for her design work, including Singapore’s President*s Design Award of the Year twice. With Lekker, she works to advance interdisciplinary approaches to design for social impact and well-being. |
Session 2: Sustainability x Care
Dr Ayesha Khanna
| A thought leader in AI, Dr Khanna has been recognised as a groundbreaking entrepreneur by Forbes, named to Edelman’s Top 50 AI Creators (2025), and featured in Salesforce’s 16 AI Influencers to Know (2024). Committed to diversity in tech, she founded the charity 21C Girls, which taught thousands of students the basics of AI and coding in Singapore, and currently provides scholarships for mid-career women through her education company Amplify.
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Alice Bucknell
| An artist, writer and educator based in Los Angeles, Alice’s work explores the affective dimensions of video games as interfaces for understanding complex systems, relationships, and forms of knowledge. Alice is generally interested in the limits of scientific knowledge and systems thinking, speculative fiction as a critical method, and the ecological dimensions of video games that can dissolve binaries like humans versus environment, natural versus synthetic intelligence, and self versus world. |
Chatpong Chuenrudeemol | Director of Chat Architects in Bangkok, Chatpong Chuenrudeemol is an architect deeply impacted by the beauty and ugliness of Bangkok. His projects aim to capture the true essence of his birth city and are rooted in his research of “Bangkok Bastards”- the local live street vernacular often overlooked for their informality, but brimming with architectural invention and cultural authenticity. Chat is also focused on teaching his strategies on documenting “Bastard Arhitecture”, leading community-building design studios at Chulalongkorn University’s Intenational Programme in Design and Architecture. |
Dr Lily Yeo | Dr Lily Yeo heads NTUC Health’s Active Ageing Centres, Singapore’s largest network supporting seniors to age well. She spearheads strategic growth and service transformation, shaping inclusive and engaging community spaces for ageing. With a PhD in Chemistry and an MSc in Applied Gerontology, Dr Lily brings over 20 years of leadership across corporate R&D, sales, and social innovation. Passionate about community well-being, she contributes to national initiatives in innovation, digitalisation, and healthy ageing, creating meaningful impact for seniors and society. |
Thomas Thwaites
| Thomas Thwaites is a design researcher, and author of two acclaimed books; The Toaster Project, and Goatman: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human. His work explores the social impacts of technology as we struggle to find a sustainable future. It is exhibited worldwide, with projects held in the permanent collections of national museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and the Boijmans Museum (Rotterdam). He has won multiple awards, including the the renowned ‘Ig Nobel Prize’ for Biology. |
Moderator Tamsin Greulich-Smith
| Tamsin Greulich-Smith is Director of Design Practice at the DesignSingapore Council, building learners’ design skills whilst tackling social challenges. She leads the Council’s Design X Care work, and is faculty at the Centre for Healthcare Innovation. She was previously founding Chief of the “Smart Health Leadership Centre” at the National University of Singapore, where she used digital data and design to transform health outcomes. In the UK, she ran an innovation firm specialising in strategic design across public and private sectors.
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